Dear Jim, I understand the value of IB&R and how it can keep a check on the elected representatives. However we have to consider the more basic question of how these representatives come to be elected in the first place. We need to have an organized and credible alternative system to political parties for choosing the candidate for elections. Till then the reign of political parties will continue.
Even in the Swiss system (assuming that the politicians there are more people-friendly than anywhere else in the world) an alternative to political parties, if available, would only further improve the performance of the political parties on a competitive basis.
PVR
On Sun, 7 Sep 2008 12:41:03 +0200 wddm@world-wide-democracy.net wrote Hi PVR, In response to your email: 1. I have no problem with a professional politician. Many of them work very hard to serve their communities. Most of the legislation passed in Switzerland is by politicians. They provide an essential service. Change the system to DD and you will attract the right people.
2. The voters must realise that their vote is wasted if they are merely voting for those who they think will win. Convince the voters that they are employers of the politicians. Ask the voter if they would employ anyone that they have no control over.
3. Those who are pushing DD should select the candidate. The candidate signs a contract that they will accept the nomination, support and finance by following specific DD and recall principles. If they fail to, there are specific penalties.
4. With DD and recall the candidate is less important as they can be removed and any legislation can be changed by the sovereign status of the voter.
Subject: [WDDM] Re:[WDDM] Non direct-democracy items
Dear Federico Tonini,
I agree with your following observation - "We believe the only way to deal with professional politicians is to take votes away from them, and we believe this must start from the bottom and move upwards".
How exactly can we convince the voters to vote for the candidate selected by the local assembly for DD? The average voter would feel that his vote will be wasted if it is cast for an unknown and unproven entity.
Even if the local assembly decides to go ahead and put up its candidate, how exactly is it going to select the candidate? There should be a sound and universally acceptable criterion and it should have enough credibility to convince the voter to vote for.
I think an effective way of doing this is to adopt the 'Troika system' or the 'Triplet system' discussed on the WDDM Forum (under Proposals section). This is a crucial starting point, as everything else in democracy depends on the quality of the elected representative and the credibility of the system that elects him.
I suggest that the movements in Italy and Greece consider making this system the cornerstone of their efforts.
Regards,
Vijayaraghavan Padmanabhan
(PVR) (thoughVRP or VP sounds better)
On Sat, 6 Sep 2008 03:32:26 +0200 wddm@world-wide-democracy.net wrote
Dear PVR
(excuse me but I do not understand your name very well).
I think you have got to the point, if you had a chance to read my messages to Jiri Polak and the latest mail from George Kokkas, you can see that this is exactly what we are trying to do : we would like to make the newsletter directed from Dr. Polak a kind of safe securing the ideas of DD.
As far as useless discussions, I believe they get us nowhere.
We have started in Italy a Movement called Democrazia Federale and we want to compete political parties in elections.
The same Dr. Kokkas is making in Greece
We believe the only way to deal with professional politicians is to take votes away from them, and we believe this must start from the bottom and move upwards.
I shall meet Dr. Kokkas in Aarau at the next DD Congress and we shall try to work out an alliance between our Movements into one only European Party.